~ After 50 years, clearly gaming is lifelong

“What the hell are you doing ?”

It didn’t hurt that my benefactor told me he’d give me free stuff if I hit it first. Before the other guy, working in Burbank, who was almost level 8. I beat him by a mere 12 minutes, and claimed 200 level 8 items.

One thing you apparently need to be careful about is…… what the hell kind of an idiot you look like when you’re playing Ingress. Wandering the streets of downtown Burbank at lunchtime was a bad idea – all my coworkers, out for their lunchbreaks, spotted me. A few asked me “What in the hell are you doing ?”, some kept silent, but I bet they were all thinking that. Have to remember that I am, truly, well known among a 1500 person population and behave accordingly.

You have to move in a circle around a portal to deploy resonators, and walk to the middle to attack it. Or both, as the tactical situation allows. You also move from portal to portal as you collect keys. This means, to outside eyes, you are wandering back and forth while glued to a screen, which all the muggles do not understand in the slightest. All they think is what my IT guy told me – “That’s gotta be a crappy map app!”. I blew it all off each time as getting out and walking, which is certainly partially true.

Hmmm. Pretty accurate.

Most of, or all of, downtown Burbank changed hands between green and blue 3 times or so this week, so it’s best to expect that and not get too invested in particular portals. Now that I’m level 8 anyway I’m thinking more of the bigger picture – how to keep the global score for the Resistance higher than the greens. To that end I’m less interested in making a control field for +6 MU’s. Rather, I want to knock down the bigger green fields and build up a field of triangles myself.

I think one simple attraction of the game for me is – how exactly do I take this mess of portals and make triangles ? It’s not always a simple question.

Ok – So…… where do I want to go, and in what order ?

But. Probably better walked in a straight line, if people I know are seeing me.